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The Prisoner‘s Reture
The story begins in 1945 in a train bringing French prisoners back from Germany. They were exhausted but excited and happy because they knew that at last, after five years‘ absence they were again going to see their own country, their homes, their families.
Mirrored in the minds of most of them was the face of a woman. They thought-of-her, wife-or-sweetheart, lovingly, hopefully, some anxiously. Would they find her still the same, faithful? What had she been doing during that long solitude? Would it be possible to start the old life over with her?
In one corner of the compartment sat a tall, thin man, with a passionate face and flashing eyes. He was Renaud Leymarie, a native of a town in Perigord we shall call Chardeuil. As the train rolled through the night he talked with his neighbour:
"Are you married,Saturnin?"
"Why, certainly I’m married. Two years before the war. Her name is Marthe. Want to see her?"
Saturnin drew from his inside pocket a worn, greasy wallet and proudly displayed a torn photograph.
"She‘s magnificent," said Leymarie. "Aren’t you worried about coming back?"
"Worried? I‘m tickled to death. Why be worried?"
"Because she’s pretty, because she was alone, because there are so many other men...."
"Aren‘t you sure of your wife?"
"Yes -- at least, I was, perhaps more than anyone. Why, we’d been married six years and there was never a word between us."
"Well, then...?"
"It‘s a matter of temperament, I guess," Leymarie said. " I’m one of those fellows who can never quite believe their own good luck. Always I‘ve felt that Helene was too good for me, too pretty, too intelligent. She’s an educated girl. She can do anything. So I‘ve thought to myself, during the war there were a lot of refugees at our house and, among them, there would be better fellows than I. Perhaps foreigners, Allies. The best-looking girl in the village would certainly have caught their eye."
"Well, so that? If she loves you...."
"Oh, sure. But can you imagine what it’s like to be alone for five years? Chardeuil isn‘t her home, it’s mine. She has no people there. So temptation must have been strong."
"No, I‘m sure you’re wrong," said Saturnin."And suppose something did happen? What difference does that make -- if she has forgotten it? If it‘s only you that matters? Look, they might tell me that Marthe....Well, I’d just answer,‘Not one more word! She’s my wife; it was wartime, she was alone; now there is peace.‘ We’d pick up where we left off."
" I‘m not like that," said Leymarie." If I were to find out, when I get back, that there was the least little thing." " What would you do...Kill her?" " No, I wouldn’t do anything. Not a single reproach. I would disappear. I would go somewhere else to live, under an assumed name. I would leave her my money, my house -- I don‘t need anything, I have a trade. I would make a new life. Perhaps that’s stupid, but that‘s the way I am: all or nothing."
The locomotive whistled, there was the click of steel wheels passing over switches. The men fell silent.
When the mayor of Chardeuil, fatherly and wise, received the official announcement that Renaud Leymarie would return on August 20, he decided to go himself to inform Renaud’s wife ahead of time. He found her working in her garden.
" Everyone loves you, Madame Leymarie. And it makes me very happy to be the first to tell you of your husband‘s return. I know you will want to give him a royal welcome. Like the rest of us, you don’t eat well every day, but on such an occasion at this...."
"You are right. Mr Mayor. I‘ll give Renaud a fine welcome. You said the 20th? What time do you think he will get here?"
"About noon, at the earliest."
"I assure you, he’ll have a fine dinner, Mr Mayor -- and I am grateful for your visit."
On the morning of the 20th Helene Leymarie arose at six o‘clock. She hadn’t slept at all. The day before she had cleaned the whole house, scrubbed the tile floor, made the boards shine, put fresh ribbons around the window curtains. She had looked over her underwear and lovingly chosen the silk, which she had never worn during her long solitude. What dress should she wear? The one he liked best in the old days was a blue-and-white print. But when she tried it on she saw with distress that the waist hung loose, so thin had her body become from the years of privation. No, she would wear a black dress which she had made herself, and brighten it with a gay collar and belt.
Before preparing the dinner, she thought of all the things he used to like. But in France in 1945 so many things could not be had. Luckily she had some fresh eggs, thanks to her chickens, and he always used to say that she made omelets better than anyone else. A chocolate dessert? Yes, that was what he liked best, but where could one get chocolate? Then a friend had told her of a grocer in the next town who sold chocolate " under the counter".
"If I leave at eight, I can perhaps be back by nine. I‘ll get everything ready before I go, so that when I return I will only have to do the cooking."
She was gay and excited. It was a beautiful day. Never had the morning sun over the valley been so bright. Singing, she set the table: "the red-and-white-checked table-cloth that was the one we had at our first dinner in our own home. The pink plates with the pictures that used to make him laugh. A bottle of sparkling wine -- and above all, some flowers. He always loved flowers on the table and he used to say that I arranged them better than anyone else."
Then before she left the house she leaned on her bicycle and gazed through the open window at the little room. Yes, everything looked just perfect. After so much misery, Renaud would be surprised and delighted to find his home and his wife so little changed. Through the window she looked at herself in the big mirror. A little too thin, perhaps， but still fair and young. She was bursting with happiness.
The little Leymaire house was set apart at the very end of the village, so that an hour later only a neighbor saw the thin soldier with burning eyes when he slipped into the garden. He stood there a moment, dazzled by the light and his happiness, intoxicated by the beauty of the flowers listening to the buzzing of the honeybees. Then he called softly:
"Helene!"
No answer.
"Helene! -- Helene!"
Frightened by the silence, he came closer. Then through the window he saw the table set for two, the flowers, the bottles of wine. He felt mortally wounded and had to lean against the wall.
"Good Lord!" he must have thought." She is not alone!"
When Helene returned, a short time later, the neighbor called to her:" I’d seen your Renaud. He was running along the road; I called to him, but he wouldn‘t come back."
"He was running?Which direction?"
"Toward Thiviers."
She rushed to the mayor’s house, but he knew nothing.
" I‘m so afraid, Mr Mayor. Renaud, with all his hardboiled appearance, it is a jealous, sensitive man. He saw the table set for two. He couldn’t have known it was for him that I had set it. We must find him again at once. My Mayor, we must! He might never come back, and I love him so much!"
The Mayor sent a man to the Thiviers station and alerted the police. But Renaud Leymarie had disappeared. Helene sat all night long by the table, where the flowers were drooping in the heat.
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ۋاقتى: 2013-2-18 20:37:42
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